This piece is part of the weekly series “Growing Forward: Insights for Building Better Food and Agriculture Systems,” presented by the Global Food Institute at the George Washington University and the nonprofit organization Food Tank. Each installment highlights forward-thinking strategies to address today’s food and agriculture related challenges with innovative solutions. To view more pieces in the series, click here.
In Chicago, there is a moment that happens every morning that I wish everyone in America could witness.
It’s not flashy. No ribbon-cutting, no press, no celebrity chef plating a perfect dish. It’s just a box of fresh produce—sturdy, colorful, perfectly packed—placed gently on a neighbor’s porch by someone who lives just a few blocks away. There’s a nod. Sometimes a smile. Often, a “see you next week.” It takes ten seconds. But in that tiny moment, something powerful happens: trust is built, dignity is honored, and the engine of economic justice turns once again.
These are the moments we create at Dion’s Chicago Dream, every day—and we’ve done it more than 175,000 times over the last three years. We don’t just deliver food. We deliver hope wrapped in kale and cucumbers—on time, every time. But let’s be clear: we’re not in the business of handouts. We’re in the business of transformation. When food assistance is done right, it doesn’t just fight hunger. It builds wealth. It rewrites narratives. It creates jobs, fosters pride, and restores power to communities that have too often been ignored, extracted from, or left out of the conversation entirely.
So we’re changing the conversation—and we’re just getting started.
When I launched Dion’s Chicago Dream in 2020 with a cheap, used refrigerator and a borrowed outlet on the South Side, I wasn’t trying to disrupt the food system. I just wanted my neighbors to have something fresh to eat. But that one refrigerator became a mirror: it showed me how broken and impersonal traditional food access models are—and how much more is possible when dignity leads the way.
Too many well-meaning programs focus solely on volume: how many pounds distributed and how many families served. But very few ask: who’s being empowered in this process? How is wealth being built, and who is it benefitting? What would it look like if food assistance didn’t just sustain life—but paved the way for people to thrive?
That question changed everything.
At Dion’s Chicago Dream, we believe our food assistance should be a launchpad—not a lifeline. That means designing systems that don’t just fill gaps temporarily but close them permanently by putting dollars, decisions, and dignity back into the hands of community members.
One of the first changes we made was doing away with the traditional non-profit volunteer model. Instead, we hire and pay every single person on our Dream Team a living wage—at least US$20 an hour. These are folks from the same zip codes we serve. And because they’re invested in the organization, they show up every day with pride and purpose. They’re not just employees. They’re ambassadors of care and consistency.
Since we began, we’ve created 50 jobs and generated meaningful income for our neighbors—all while delivering more than 3.5 million pounds of fresh produce across the Chicagoland region. Our drivers are known by name. Our recipients are not “clients”—they’re co-creators of a more equitable system. And every delivery is a chance to say: “You matter. We see you. We’re building this together.”
True connection matters. Intentionality matters. Especially in communities that have historically received what’s left over, rather than what’s deserved.
We are working to ensure that innovation is rooted in people, not products.
Technology is part of our model—but never the star of the show. We’ve deployed network-connected Dream Vaults—secure food lockers placed at trusted neighborhood businesses that allow families to pick up produce when it works for them. We’ve partnered with the organizations CountyCare and Foodsmart to launch a food is medicine program, integrating nutrition directly into patient care plans. These aren’t flashy ideas—they’re responsive ones, shaped by the voices of those we serve.
Every program we create begins with the same question: what does it look like when communities are trusted to define their own solutions?
The answer is always human-centered, dignified, and built to last—because no one knows what a community needs better than the people in it.
This work isn’t just about food—it’s about power.
When you pay people fairly to serve their own communities, you don’t just reduce hunger. You reduce unemployment, strengthen families, and energize neighborhood economies. You build pipelines to entrepreneurship, home ownership, and generational wealth. You turn recipients into stakeholders, who in turn receive millions in wages. The system we are building has and continues to pay off.
This is the economic engine we’re generating through humble boxes of produce. We’re living proof that food assistance can be a tool not only for survival, but for sovereignty.
Our model doesn’t require a federal overhaul to begin. It just takes courage. It requires a willingness to go beyond serving communities with one-sided charity, but rather trusting them with our long term investment in their future, and making sure they have a seat at the table.
And if we’re serious about building a food system rooted in equity, we have to start by asking who we’re buying from—and who we’re not. Black farmers have always been essential to this country’s agricultural history, yet they remain shut out of the very markets they helped shape. Less than 2 percent of U.S. farms are Black-owned, and even fewer have reliable access to large-scale procurement pipelines. At Dion’s Chicago Dream, we know that purchasing isn’t just a logistical decision—it’s a justice decision. Every time we choose to source from Black and Brown farmers, we’re reinvesting in generational resilience, not just produce. We’re not just filling our delivery boxes—we’re fueling a supply chain that prioritizes inclusion, representation, and legacy.
Because what good is innovation if it bypasses the people who’ve been historically left out? True food security means not only ensuring that families have consistent access to healthy food, but that the growers of that food—especially Black farmers—have consistent access to markets that value them. Procurement is power. So if we’re delivering hope on porches across Chicago, we want that hope to start in fields owned and operated by farmers who’ve too often been written out of the story. It’s not enough to distribute equity—we have to grow it from the root. And that means centering the people who have been cultivating the land, feeding communities, and waiting far too long for their rightful seat at the economic table.
We’re not waiting–we’re leading. We don’t have time to wait for broken systems to catch up. At Dion’s Chicago Dream, we’re building a future where food access is predictable, personal, and powerful. We’re designing programs that are as scalable as they are soulful. And we’re proving every single week that a more equitable food system isn’t just possible—it’s already happening in Chicago.
If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere—wherever there are community leaders willing to harness their courage, ask the right questions, and shake up the system. Ruffle some feathers in the process? Good. It means people are finally paying attention.
Economic justice isn’t a theory. It’s a delivery route. It’s a paycheck. It’s a clean box of collards handled with care.
So the next time someone asks what innovation looks like in the fight against hunger or food security, tell them it looks like this: a job created, a family fed, a community healed—one box at a time.
Photo courtesy of Dion’s Chicago Dream
